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Fowler grinder sale knives

Ok who got them? In his last post he had the first batch getting shipped out but I have not seen any reviews posted up yet, what do you guys think of the knives? I'm still waiting on mine, shouldn't be to much longer now.

I got one. I don't post reviews as I am not nearly as experienced as other people on the forum so it usually doesn't make sense to but here goes:
I have been able to use an earlier Fowler (pre-convex grinds), and I own one of the grinder sale knives.
Stephan's W2 is great, it sharpens very easily and can get sharper than any other steel I've tried. Edge retention is kind of hard to judge in my home kitchen but it seems to be fairly good. It isn't particularly reactive (a little onion browning, not much) but I put on a mustard patina anyways.
The handle is great, a wa box elder burl with cocobolo ferrule. Very comfortable and looks nice. My knife weighs in at 260g, which for me at least is on the heavier side.
You can tell the convex grind does help somewhat, the knife does still stick to potatoes - but not as much as his earlier knives do.

Onto what I would change:
Profile:
The tip needs to be raised. I reprofiled it a little bit on a 400 grit stone (took forever by the way), but out of the box it was almost a funayuki or something. For comparison here is a WIP shot of the profile of the earlier knife (it was a gift for someone) and then a finished pic of a knife from the same batch with an identical profile (the picture of mine disappeared from the thread somehow)

Old profile:

New profile (before I lifted up the nose a little bit):

The only other major gripe I have is the spine is only rounded around a third of the way down the blade, which is sufficient for almost every task in the ktichen. It is uncomfortable when you are putting both hands on the blade for something really tough like squash, etc.

Overall I really enjoy the knife and it gets considerable use. For the price he sells them at I think they are very good, and if he moves back to his old profile and made a few minor touches he could become a very popular maker here.

Just to be clear: All of this is my opinion based on my rather limited use of high quality knives. Also if anyone has any questions feel free to post them here or PM me.

I think you wright/ wrote a nice review. Covered a lot of good points, and gave honest insight. Don't judge your self, and this goes out to all "new nuts" on how much experience you have with knives. I for one like a " new user" point of view and I think it's very helpful to the makers to here what both new users as well as more experienced ones have to say. I thank you for stepping up first, it's way to easy for "newer" members to be swayed by what the older members have to say.
A knife review is total opinion, no right or wrong in my book.

I got one as well, could not pass on the deal although I was going to wait to get my first carbon blade. I have not been able to use it all that much to tell you anything useful, especially since I just got a DT ITK not that long before so I am splitting my limited time trying to get use to them both. I have been mostly using it on meat, specifically flank steak and have no complaints. Have not sharpened it yet, but the edge was pretty good ootb.

I think I need to start over on the patina and force one since I am about 1.5 block from the beach, and I noticed some rust on the side of the blade that rests up (no room for mag strip, have not gotten a block that can accomidate multiple large knives yet, so resting in box on the counter). Hopefully a full patina and actually storing it in a block will help this since there is very limited drawer space in my kitchen. Any suggestions on other ways to protect it in high salt air?

Also, I think there is plenty of information out there on forcing a patina, or at least talking about it, but what is the best way to remove one? I read Flitz paste, or something like that, in another thread. What are my options, and any pro & cons?